The Cleveland Show: Update on Family Guy Spinoff

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The wait will be a bit longer.

By Eric Goldman

The Cleveland Show, the upcoming spinoff of Family Guy, was originally scheduled to premiere midseason on FOX. However, the series was missing from FOX's recently announced winter/spring schedule, and word had been spreading it might be held until next fall. FOX has now revealed that is indeed the case, and the series will premiere fall 2009. While that might mean the wait is longer, it comes with good news for the show – the episode order has been upped from 13 to a full 22 episode season.

FOX's press release quotes the fictional star of the series, Cleveland Brown himself, who says, "FOX picking up nine more episodes of our show is proof that an African-American can make it in this country. This is a milestone for the United States of America."

Also announced was the addition of Arianna Huffington in a recurring role, joining previously announced cast members Sanaa Lathan, Nia Long, Kevin Michael Richardson, Mike Henry and Seth MacFarlane. Huffington is certainly an interesting choice, as she is known as the co-founder and editor-in-chief of The Huffington Post, a news website and political blog. She is a nationally syndicated columnist, the author of 12 books and the co-host of "Left, Right & Center," a political roundtable radio program.

From FOX's press release:

THE CLEVELAND SHOW, set to debut fall 2009, is a new animated series that follows everyone's favorite soft-spoken neighbor CLEVELAND BROWN (voiced by Henry) to his hometown in Virginia, as he settles down with his high school sweetheart, DONNA (voiced by Lathan), and her unruly kids ROBERTA (voiced by Long) and 5-year-old RALLO (voiced by Henry), as well as his own 14-year-old son, CLEVELAND JR (voiced by Richardson). Once in Virginia, Cleveland is welcomed by a collection of neighbors that includes a loudmouth redneck, LESTER (voiced by Richardson); a hipster wanna-be, HOLT; and a family of talking bears, including TIM (voiced by MacFarlane) and his wife ARIANNA (voiced by Huffington).